I suspect you’ve heard of a double cross, ain’t too complicated, try a triple cross you want complications. That’s exactly what I was involved in up to my thick aching neck at the moment. We went back what seemed like centuries, me and Ernie, Ernie Flatulose, named that not for nothing, he was stinkier than a alleycat who fed on dry fishbones, and washed himself in octogenarians’ bedpan showers. We grew up, or down, you wanna know the truth, in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. He was a mobster now, in Sammy The Lip Wopanski’s family. Sammy, or The Big Salami, as his many enemies called him, ruled over Sheepshead’s Bay, Greenpoint, and the better part of Flatbush, Brooklyn, all of Staten Island and half of Queens. Ernie was his bag man and was in and out of the action as Sammy saw fit. He alternated his henchmen to keep the feds and local cops from following his operations too close. Then there was Agnes, Oh God, a four-flusher if you ever seen one, and you never seen one like Agnes. Gorgeous enough to knock the socks off a Miami Hurricane in full blow, she caused men’s unmentionables to grow by at least a foot when she walked into the room. Agnes was playing Ernie at the time I speak of.

I know, I know, I haven’t spoke much about it yet, I’m getting there don’t rush me, or you’ll find yourself swallowing your own final air bubbles on the way down to the bottom of the Hudson, pulled down there by custom-made cement shoes. Anyways, Agnes was leading Ernie around by an invisible nose-ring, keeping her distance because of that beforementioned odor of his. She wanted in to Sammy’s inner circle, and she picked Ernie to get her there. Me, I haven’t told you yet, whatta you, always this nervous, this pushy? Here it is, I’m laying it out for your personal consumption now. I’m a private Dick. What? Everybody’s dick is private – Whatta you a wise guy? Ok, Ok, I’ll allow it because it’s showing me you got a slight, and I mean mini-school, sense of humor. Ernie knows my game, and he knows he can trust me to keep his business out of my business, if you catch my drift. There was a jewel heist, and guess who was the heister? You’re sharper than your looks would indicacate. Yah, Ernie, and guess who the jewels were for. Bingo! Agnes got a windfall on that one, she hocked everything but a diamond choker, thinking Sammy would be impressed enough to cozy up ta her. He did just that, thinking if this broad had this kinda walk-around joobles, she must have some other bigger ones locked away in her boudoir. So, I had the information, and Ernie had the red-faced cuckhold blooze over Agnes, but couldn’t let out a canary’s peep because of Sammy being the big cheese godfather an’ all.

Where do I fit in, listen chum, I’m getting’ tired of you jackin’ me up, this is my story, shut up an’ pay attention. I knew about all of it, the whole shmear, Agnes knew I knew, So did ernie, everybody but Sammy the Lip. I had a client, unmenschable, who wanted the dirt, the dirty goods on Sammy the Lip, no names, but he was employed by J. Edgar, who needed to make his mark to impress his boyfriend, which I also knew about, who was a coffee boy at the White House. I approached Agnes about her affair, at a dance hall, when Sammy the Lip was in the little boy’s room, about some unfinished business she had with Ernie. She came on to me and, gimpy fool that I was, I fell for her.

We met later that night at the Imperial, up over the Chinaman’s Chop Suey joint on Little Elizabeth Street. We terminated any doubt about what belonged to who and who belonged to what and where and exactly how the moving parts fit together, and made a bargain. If she’d give me Sammy the Lip’s details for his next shipment, she’d let me take her to Rio on a slow boat, making everybody think we were headed for China instead. She also gave up Ernie, telling me she could give me proof he’d masterminded the jewelry heist, so I could hand the Fed two for one. Like I said, it turned out to be a triple-cross. Agnes confessed to Ernie about my plans and Ernie turned on me to Sammy, putting me on that boat that was chugging trough the rip tide now for Liverpool, Rio and China not being the recommended destinations. I got a friend in Liverpool who can set me up with a new slewfoot operation. So much for old pals and treacherous femme-fatales. I’m through with both of them. Now what was that you were going to tell me about that bank heist the other night. You can trust me, I don’t have no girlfriend now.